Buddhists talk about the mind being a spastic, unruly monkey. When the monkey is under control, it’s a wonderful pet, but give it the chance, and it will bounce around, looking for bananas and mischief. Getting it under control requires a wide variety of tricks and tranquilizers (television, anyone?).
For creative types, we need to have zen-like control of our mind. However, if you’re not the mediating, yoga-ing zen type, journaling provides the fastest way to get the monkey under control.
“Why would you bother to learn Korean? You’ll never use it when you leave here, it’s a useless skill.” When I heard these words, I rolled my eyes and thought the speaker had had too much soju. Later, though, I realized his attitude was a fairly common one. Many people see learning things like Korean, [...]
